School of Law and Criminal Justice: research seminars

This article is an update to Decker’s 2017 article which examined the initial legislative response in the U.S. to the widespread use of drones. It reports and analyses the legislative efforts to create new laws and adapt old ones to deal with small unmanned aircraft within the context of criminal offenses and their use by law enforcement officers for searches. This article also examines recent case law relating to criminal prosecution of drone crimes and use of drones by police.

Associate Professor Lisa Decker has been teaching and researching at the Indiana State University School of Criminology and Security Studies for 28 years. She currently teaches the subjects of criminal justice ethics, substantive criminal law, and procedural criminal law. Her research interests include policing (best hiring practices and missing persons investigations) as well as various areas of criminal law, with particular focus on criminal procedure and high-tech search issues. Prior to her time as a professor, Decker worked as a police officer and a prosecuting attorney.

Over 90% of crime is now recognized as having a digital element and the UK government acknowledges that digital forensics is the heart of delivering justice but the backlog in cases is growing exponentially, police have found it difficult to keep up with the pace of rapid advances in digital evidence and there is a skills shortage of educated and trained individuals in the field.

Jason James is an Assistant Professor in Cybersecurity in the School of Criminology and Security Studies at Indiana State University. He is also the Deputy Director and Chief Digital Forensics Investigator for the Vigo County/Indiana State University High Tech Cybercrime Unit. He has a Doctor of Science (D.Sc.) in Information Systems and Communication with a Concentration in Cybersecurity.